There's another 950 feet in our future...

We had rain this past weekend. The kind of hard torrential rain that transforms the streets into rivers and creates massive puddles on your lawn. The kind that homeowners with leaky basements dread...

So after the massive rain, I wander down to our basement to grab something from the pantry, and I step in a puddle. Uh oh. The leak. The elusive, can't-figure-out-the-cause-of-it, leak - is back. I call the Hubs and give him the good news, and restate my campaign for calling in an expert. Let's stop trying to fix this ourselves. Let's get someone in that actually knows something...

And for once? The Hubs agreed. He'd reached his breaking point. He was willing to call Uncle. Whatever it was - I was happy. So the specialists were called in. They were explained the issues that had been haunting us for 3 years. They had a few diagnoses from just that phone conversation, but insisted they must come and do a site visit to give a proper estimate. That site visit would cost $250, but if we had them do the work, it was all credited to the invoice.

Fair enough, right? So we did it. The specialist came. He looked. He examined. Inside and out. He sprayed a massive amount of water at the "spot" we thought was causing the leak. He looked again. He examined. He ripped down insulation and really looked.

And..... nothing. There's no crack. There's no hole. There's no leak.

It's all condensation.

Yes, seriously.

So turn up (down?) your humidifiers (40 is optimal apparently). Open your basement vents (for both air-con and heating). Turn the humidifier on your furnace off (even in the winter). And get that air flowing. Because apparently condensation can actually accumulate to the point of puddles.

Yes, seriously.

Good news? This only cost us $250 to learn. And $0 to pass on this lovely wisdom...

Finished basement... here we come.

xxoo.S